MTH locomotives and DCC

[yelrow]

peter, thanks., from reading posts you appear very content with yours. john

[kirtleypete]

I am, now I'm used to them I think they're brilliant. I was just a case of getting my head around a different way of doing things. 

 

Peter

[yelrow]

What a superb loco   great sound, cab chatter, flashing lights and horn, for level crossings.  Handbook, is only 39 pages, and most of this is about advanced programming and sound changes.  Have immediately started, looking to find others, hopefully in europe. Have no need to change from CV3, as none of my existing ones, carry that number. Works fine on Hornby, Railmaster,  Elite and Select. Well chuffed. john

[kirtleypete]

That's good to hear John,

 

Peter

[Channybear]

All right, I'll come clean!

 

I bought the loco at Lille exhibition on Sunday - when I got it home there was no booklet. It ran perfectly at first.

 

Yesterday I put it on my programming track - not having done the sensible thing and looked at the online manual first - and tried to change the address. Not only did the address not change, the loco stopped working - it was completely dead. I tried everything - factory reset, etc....nothing worked.

 

This morning it has gone back to MTH to be sorted out. This is the second MTH loco I've bought and the second one that has gone wrong. I shouldn't have used the programming track, but that shouldn't destroy all the electrics in the damn engine!

 

I use Lenz DCC, and as far as I can see you can't use POM to change the address.

 

 

It's a shame, because the loco is a beauty, a really good model. It wasn't cheap, though, and having spent that amount on it I expect it to work and keep working.

 

I've asked MTH to change the address for me when they repair the loco - fingers crossed!

 

Peter

Hi Peter,

 

I have 4 MTH locos, 3 O gauge and 1 HO.  I think they are terrific, with all the smoke, lights and sound operating, they are quite spectacular.   I recently bought myself a birthday present, a new Premier O gauge Big Boy 4014.  Postage to Australia costs about $AUD300  so I was horrified when it died last week. As in your case, factory resets etc didn't work, but then I found the problem. The connection between the loco and the tender had come loose, I pushed it back up into place and bingo! - one all smoking, all dancing Big Boy was back on the rails.  The horror of an inconvenient and expensive warranty return vanished like a bad dream.

 

So there you go - don't forget the loco/tender connection, it may look OK but if the connection isn't quite there, the train is dead.  That may not have been the case with you, but I offer this as another MTH owner.

[RAF96]

Ref not being able to change the loco address on the main and despite all the books and the NMRA spec saying you can’t do it, I have found changing the value of CV1 to be as easy as any other CV change.

 

I call up the address of the loco involved, so only that one listens, call up CV1 and write the new address value to it. This was done using a Hornby Elite and was a necessary method at the time when the programming functionality of the Elite had died, so it was use

POM or everything new was stuck on 003.

 

Rob

[kirtleypete]

You're right Rob, it's how I've done it on all my loco's now.

 

Peter

[kirtleypete]

The MTH saga continues!!

 

I'm delighted with my MTH engines, but...…………….!!

 

On our layout is a turntable. All the conventional DCC loco's run on and off perfectly...after all the turntable track until it moves is nothing more than a length of plain track wired into the DCC busbar like the rest of the layout. All the MTH loco's, though, run onto the turntable beautifully until the gap between the loco and tender is over the edge of the turntable (so the loco is on the turntable and the tender still on the layout), and then they short circuit. It doesn't matter which way round the loco is, the same happens. 

 

I've tried two 231E Pacifics, two 141P 2-8-2's and a 150X 2-10-0 and they all do the same so it's something to do with the MTH wiring. Has anyone any ideas before I rip out all the wiring and put in conventional decoders?

Peter

[10000]

Not familiar with any of them but a suggestion before you start tearing things apart,  use a meter on each side to check for connection between the loco and tender.

[kirtleypete]

The trouble is we need to run ordinary DCC loco's as well. The turntable is DCC powered with it's own sound decoder and I'm wondering if the MTH engines don't like that. I've no idea why though. I don't want to mess with the turntable as it's working perfectly with all the other engines. 

 

The MTH loco's are fine everywhere else, it's just in this one place that there's a problem. It's got me beaten, it seems totally illogical.

 

Peter

[10000]

 

 

Alternatively, there could be an issue with how US steam loco's in general are wired: one rail from the loco, the other picks up from the tender. The auto-reverser (for the turntable) may not work properly in this case, so perhaps rewire the turntable to have sections of track connecting to said turntable to be included in the auto-reverse section.

 

Thats why I suggested checking with a meter. I just didn't want to get into the  in's and outs until we are aware of how it collects from the track.

[kirtleypete]

It's been suggested that I wire a reversing loop unit into the feed to the turntable. I've ordered one, it should arrive on Tuesday so I can get it fitted and see what happens. It does seem logical, I'm pretty hopeful that will solve the problem.

 

Sometimes I can see the attraction of clockwork!!

 

Peter

Edited June 16, 2018 by kirtleypete

[Nigelcliffe]

It's been suggested that I wire a reversing loop unit into the feed to the turntable. I've ordered one, it should arrive on Tuesday so I can get it fitted and see what happens. It does seem logical, I'm pretty hopeful that will solve the problem.

 

Sometimes I can see the attraction of clockwork!!

 

Peter

 

I'd think very carefully before implementing it. 

If the turntable is working for most locos, then it clearly has some sort of reversing mechanism built into it.  If that's a mechanical position switch which just changes as the table rotates, then all may be fine.  But if its another electronic switching unit inside the turntable, then having two automated reversing mechanisms over the top of each risks a run-away race condition failure as one device swaps then the other, then the first, etc...

[brianusa]

No doubt we've all seen the early blurb about driving your engines with remote control from both MTH and Lionel and I fell for both.  One by one just bout all of them failed with one thing or another; sound, smoke, mostly I my case that I got so fed up with sending them away for repair that when they gave up, I just put them on the dead line and forgot about them.  Because of this, I've not bought any new locos and just use those that are still running along with old rolling stock.

One good thing out of all this is that I have concentrated on my old Hornby tinplate which gives as much pleasure with less hassle!

 

Brian.

[kirtleypete]

I was worried about that Nigel, but it seems to switch the polarity using the ring rail which is split into halves. If that is the case there shouldn't be a problem. 

 

Peter

Edited June 16, 2018 by kirtleypete

[ukmodelshops]

On 03/05/2017 at 10:36, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

http://mthtrains.com/news/037

 

Says you can use programme track to change address, I'd give that a whirl first.

Worked for me fine on a Digitrax Zephyr DCS51.

You need to call up the existing loco number, say #3.

Then change the programming mode to OPS, then type in the number you want.

I was changing my number from #03 to #1939.

First you need to change CV29 then CV17, then CV18.

You need to use the spreadsheet  calculator from the MTH wesbite in the news article to calculate the values for CV17 & 18.

 

Here is how I did address #1939:

Put the loco on the main, called up address #3 and got the sound working.

Pressed the program mode until OPS was showing,

pressed the CV button to get a lowercase 'o' in the LH of the display,

then pressed 29 to select that CV #,

then pressed the CV button again to get a lowercase 'd' in the LH of the display,

then pressed 34 to program that value into CV29 (I turn off DC operation).

Then pressed the CV button again to get the lowercase 'o' in the LH of the display,

then pressed 17 to select that CV #,

then pressed the CV button again to get a lowercase 'd' in the LH of the display,

then pressed 199 to program that value into CV17.

Then pressed the CV button again to get the lowercase 'o' in the LH of the display,

then pressed 18 to select that CV #,

then pressed the CV button again to get a lowercase 'd' in the LH of the display,

then pressed 197 to program that value into CV17.

 

It took me about 10 times longer to write the above than to actually do it. Honest it is easy when you work it out.

 

Edit: Meant to add I did do this on BLAST Mode Programming on the DCS51.

Edited February 2, 2021 by ukmodelshops
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